Keep it Local

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Created: 02 February 2016

Due to a downturn in the mining sector, our local economy has been suffering in recent times.

As a local business we are committed to our community and fellow business owners, and hereby pledge our commitment to promoting, preferencing and supporting each other through our Keep it Local partnerships.

The businesses listed on this page have signed our pledge form, agreeing to do the same.

If you would like to get involved, call the MV Solar office on 6547 1100 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

PV solar performance in the summer heat

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Created: 12 January 2016

PV solar performance in the summer heat

Solar PV IntroductionA module is made up of a series of solar cells. A solar PV cell is a semi-conductor device with boron and phosphorous additives. Unlike conductors (metals), semi-conductor materials require excitation before it can conduct electricity. This is called the photo-electric effect, where sunlight excites the electrons within the semi-conductor to generate useful electricity, a property enhanced with additives.A semi-conductor has very unique characteristics, one of which is the ‘bandgap’ between the valence band and conduction band (essentially a gap within the electrons must travel to reach the conduction band where it is capable of generating useful electricity).

Commercial Solar Solutions

Commercial Solar Solutions

A myriad of options are available for commercial installations which are usually only limited by constraints of the site.

After a comprehensive site audit and analysis of relevant client provided data (electricity bills, usage patterns etc.) we can determine the parameters of the design.

Limitations can include available roof space and orientation, maximum electricity consumption, solar availability and the size of available of cabling and whether an upgrade in the existing electrical infrastructure is required.

With these parameters in mind a discussion with the client takes place to determine the required system design.

A 20kW grid connect system MV Solar installed in Denman, December 2014

2015 Hunter Region Business Excellence Awards

On Friday, September 11, our Chief Technology Officer Gary Ellem and Business Development Manager Karen Portolan represented us at the 2015 Hunter Region Business Excellence Awards.

MV Solar has been a regular finalist at these awards and again were successfully short listed as finalists. Business owners, Michael and Lois Valantine were taking a well deserved break and were delighted when advised that MV Solar had won the award for Environmental Excellence, the second time MV Solar have achieved this distinction in recent years.

Business Development Manager Karen Portolan and Chief Technology Officer Gary Ellem at the awards night

Getting more from Solar

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Created: 21 August 2015

Over time you will notice the benefits of having solar on your home. It may be in the form of the money you get back from your excess power generated, or the savings you notice on each quarterly power bill.

Seeing these benefits has prompted people to ask the question- what can I do to improve on my system?

The most common thing that people will look at doing to their system is adding more solar panels.

A number of installations when solar first came onto the market are smaller systems- two to three kilowatts. When you look at the average system size now, we are talking about five kilowatts on a regular size family home.

This is 800 amp hours of storage recently installed by MV Solar near Singleton, NSW

Selling or renting your house? Time to buy solar!

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Created: 19 May 2015

New surveys by the prestigious Berkeley Labs in the US[1] and realestate.com and Origin Energy in Australia[2] have highlighted that prior to selling or renting your house is one of the best times to go solar.

Installing solar is typically something we often think about when building or buying a home. Banks are happy to support the idea by including the cost of a solar system with your home loan. This is a great option for becoming more self-sufficient and reducing energy cost over the longer term.

While people recognise that investing in solar is a great option when buying or building, we find that home owners and investors often hold off on installing solar when they are thinking of selling or renting their homes. This new research highlights that rather than holding off when renting or selling, this is in fact the financially most lucrative time to install solar. Paybacks are much faster and more lucrative through improved sale and rental prices.

MV Solar awarded Environmental Excellence Award

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Created: 25 September 2013

On Friday 6th September Michael and Lois Valantine attended the 2013 Hunter Region Business Excellence Awards. MV Solar has been a regular finalist at these awards and again were successfully short listed as finalists. Michael and Lois were delighted when MV Solar was awarded the Environmental Excellence Award.

‘Recognition in this category was a wonderful surprise’ said Michael. ‘This particular award is assessed across all finalists, in all categories and to be the recipient this year was both humbling and exciting for our company. We are passionate about Solar and the positive environmental outcomes solar has for our planet – to feel that our work in that area and also the way in which we do business is recognised as achieving the goals we set ourselves is satisfying and motivating'.

Is PV Solar power cost effective? Can I save money? What does it mean by free electricity?

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Created: 12 September 2013

Driven by various ad hoc State and Federal government schemes, PV solar power has come from nowhere a couple of years ago to become a major supplier of electrical energy to over 120,000 Australian households, although the general public still don’t fully understand how solar and in particular, grid connect solar works. It can be very confusing and hard to work out whether grid connect solar power is really worth it. Government rebate changes are confusing and the cost of electricity is continuing to rise rapidly and predicted to double in 5 years.